The Senate on Tuesday passed the Karo-Kari Bill aimed at enhancing punishments for offences committed in the pretext of honour killing. The opposition members staged walkout after their amendments in some of its clauses were rejected. The bill, The Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill 2004, already passed by the National Assembly in its sitting on October 26, will now become an act after going through the constitutional requirement of the president's assent, most probably within a month or even earlier.
Moments before the bill was passed, senators from the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD) and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) left the House after the amendments proposed by the latter in clauses 2, 8, 11, 14 and 15 were rejected through a voice vote.
However, Leader of the House Wasim Sajjad agreed that the government would not oppose, if ARD brought their amendments through private members' bill in future.
The bill was introduced in the Senate on Friday when the House rejected three motions of the MMA members asking to obtain public opinion on the proposed law or sending it either to the concerned standing committee for further consideration or to Islamic Ideology Council (IIC) to check its conformity with the Islamic laws.
On Tuesday, the treasury members also put their weight behind their colleagues from the opposition side in their demand of sending the bill to the House panel for further consideration, but their repeated calls could not convince Minister of State for Law Shahid Akram Bhinder to do the same.
Earlier, 11 members both from treasury and opposition benches pointed out many 'technical' loopholes in the bill and demanded to refer it to the standing committee of the Senate.
The members from treasury and ARD restricted themselves to identify technical shortfalls in the bill, while sticking to their traditional stance the MMA lawmakers termed the bill against divine rules and rejected it in entirety.
Professor Ibrahim of the MMA said that there was no need of any new law to check honour-related crimes, as he thought the rules were already present and the whole problem lied with their effective implementation.
Ruling party member Chaudhry Muhammad Anwar Bhinder said that the definition of honour-related crimes in the bill was ambiguous and could cause problems for the courts in interpreting it in future.
Farhatullah Babar of the Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) said that as this law was aimed at amending three laws - 1979 Hudood Ordinance, Karo-Kari laws and Blasphemy Act - therefore, it should be thoroughly discussed before passage.
Dr Kousar Firdaus and Mumtaz Bibi of the MMA said that this bill was being passed in a haste to please the foreign agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which wanted to take Pakistan away from Islamic norms.
A Baloch nationalist Amanullah Kanrarhi smelled what he termed a deep conspiracy of western powers to demoralise and destroy the family system in the country.
Winding up debate on the bill, Shahid Bhinder rejected the demand of the opposition members of sending it to the House panel with a view that the National Assembly committee had already discussed it in detail.
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